


i dreamt of you all summer long

by savanting



Series: The Swift Tides of Auradon and the Isle (TSwift x Descendants) [12]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Affection, Bad Parenting, Codependency, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Love, Love, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Post-Canon, Post-Descendants 3, Short One Shot, Trauma, questionable parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27342547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savanting/pseuds/savanting
Summary: Carlos de Vil is called back home, and the only thing that brings him some comfort is Jane's voice on the other end of the phone at night. One-Shot.
Relationships: Carlos de Vil & Cruella de Vil, Jane/Carlos de Vil
Series: The Swift Tides of Auradon and the Isle (TSwift x Descendants) [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910446
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	i dreamt of you all summer long

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any Disney properties. I meant for this fic to be all fluff and romance, but...I ended up uncovering a bit of toxicity in the relationship between Cruella and Carlos. I will have to revisit some of the things explored here in other fics to come.
> 
> The title comes from lyrics in the song “Betty” by Taylor Swift ( _Folklore_ album, released 2020).

_Happily ever after_ hadn’t been on Carlos’s agenda. Even back on the Isle, when it had been so easy to fall into fantasy in the nighttime hours right before sleep, he hadn’t had time for imagining things that weren’t likely to happen. The best course for his life that he could envision was sitting in the dilapidated mansion as his mother fell further and further into mania as she aged. He still could remember how she had jumped at even the sound of a dog’s bark on the barely-functioning television set he had smuggled from a trash heap. Even such a small thing had been enough to send her into a panic and a rage mixed into one big ball of chaos.

With that kind of existence, it had been far easier to look toward a worse end than a promising one.

Then he had gotten the invitation to attend school in Auradon. 

Then he had realized he loved animals, no matter how his mother had tried to poison his mind.

Then he had met Jane, a girl who spoke to some part of him that craved kindness above all else.

Then his life had become more than just a way to steal away precious things or hoard what little joy he could for himself.

After graduating Auradon Prep, it was supposed to be the best summer of his life.

But then he had gotten word from his mother’s henchmen, Jasper and Horace: his mother had fallen into a bad spell after a run-in with a pair of poodles after the Isle’s reopening to the outside world. Cruella had been asking after him.

Carlos needed to go back to the Isle.

*

“It’s not for forever,” Jane told him as he packed a small suitcase while she and Dude oversaw the process. She even reached out and rubbed his arm in that soothing way she did whenever she saw he was tense. But even affection seemed too much at the moment. He could remember a time when such things had been laced with the poison of codependency.

Before Carlos could think better of it, he gently removed her hand from his arm; he tried to cover up for the gesture by zipping his suitcase shut. “She’s just…a handful,” he said. There really wasn’t another way to describe his mother, at least not without getting into too much detail with Jane. Granted, he would have to share everything with her someday, but right then he didn’t want to worry her more than he already had. It was bad enough that he had told her once that his mother would rather have eaten a dog like Dude than give him a home. He had never seen Jane’s eyes grow so wide.

“I would come with you,” Jane said, “but this early-credit course I just started—”

“It’s fine,” Carlos said, because it was. It was bad enough he had to go back to the Isle and see his mother. He wouldn’t have wanted Jane there, at least not now with the reconstruction efforts, and to meet his mother of all things? Hell no.

When Jane didn’t reply, instead looking a bit pensive as she bit her lip, Carlos tried to plaster a smile on his face. He hoped it was convincing. “Don’t worry about it,” he assured her. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Before he could even get the chance of another word out, Jane stood and threw her arms around his neck. “Don’t let her get to you,” she said, her breath warm against his ear. “I know it’ll be hard, but…you have so much more to live for now. You know that, don’t you?”

Even with the gentle words and their promise, he didn’t know if he’d be able to keep those kinds of thoughts close throughout his stay. But he brushed his lips against Jane’s hair and really did find it in himself to smile truly right then. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

It wouldn’t be the best summer, but he would survive it. He had lived all those years on the Isle, after all. What could a few weeks do?

Carlos just had to keep telling himself that he was better than all that he had left behind.

*

It would have been easy enough to stay positive – if his mother hadn’t greeted him in a fit of rage.

“You look dreadful!” Cruella yelled, as if his very appearance affronted her, her hands clutched over her heart as she stood in just a faux-fur robe. “Just what _are_ you wearing?”

“Uh, one of Evie’s outfits?” Carlos said, his arms held out for a hug that obviously wasn’t coming. He let his arms fall to his sides and tried not to feel too nervous as his mother’s gaze examined his T-shirt and shorts that were a part of Evie’s new casual line for men.

Cruella sniffed the air as if she could smell the taint of the kingdom on him. “Oh, that dreadful girl is still making clothes? I see she hasn’t been able to pinch a hint of taste out of that brain of hers. Probably gets it from her mother.”

Carlos’s fists clenched at his sides. It was one thing for Cruella to bad-mouth him – he had gotten used to it over the years – but his friends? He was even gladder then that he hadn’t taken Jane up on her offer to come visit with him; he could imagine the hurt that would have glazed her eyes with tears.

Sometimes it was far too easy to hate his mother.

Mother and son simply stared at each other in silence before Cruella shook her head, as if her son disappointed her just by existing.

“Well, come in, come in,” she said. “There’s something I want you to help me with.”

Carlos followed after his mother and couldn’t help feeling that he had lost a battle of some kind. Just like that, he was back to being a child waiting for his mother’s approval – and he didn’t like it one bit.

*

What followed after was the truth of why Cruella had wanted her son to visit her in the first place: she was planning to remodel the mansion with the money she had been able to secure through a grant program from Auradon for “rehabilitated villains looking to get back on their feet.” Carlos was surprised his mother had even qualified, especially since she easily could have sold off some of the designer pieces in her wardrobe to fund such a project.

“That kingdom,” Cruella said, laughing to herself, “their bleeding hearts will be the death of them.”

Even after all this time, his mother spoke like a tried-and-true villain. It made Carlos’s stomach roil to hear it. But he was here to play the good son, at least as well as he could to a woman who had given up on her own flesh-and-blood long ago when he had failed to prove useful.

“What do you want me to do? For the house?” Carlos made sure to put the emphasis that he wasn’t here to help her with one last-ditch effort to be the villainous force to bring Auradon to its knees.

Cruella narrowed her eyes and tapped her cigarette holder against her red mouth.

“Your room,” she said at last, pointing down to that particular wing of the house. “I want to make it into a new walk-in closet. Be a dear and clear it out for me, will you?”

His mother didn’t even wait for a reply before she flounced away, off to scheme some more, no doubt.

Carlos stifled a sigh before he headed to his old room.

It was going to be a long summer on the Isle.

*

The next few weeks passed in a foggy blur because Cruella, disaster that she could be, had become an online shopping addict in the time since the Isle barrier had fallen. Even Carlos’s room was filled with unopened boxes from the Magical Express site that had opened up for business with orders from the Isle that, finally, had gained the use of Wi-Fi internet.

For her part, Cruella dictated orders day by day, barely lifting a finger as Carlos moved items and furniture from room to room.

Carlos’s only respite was the cell phone he had hid to make calls to Jane every night.

“How’s your mom doing?” Jane asked, her voice a hush against his ear as he lay back on a futon he had unearthed from the clutter.

 _I don’t want to talk about her,_ he thought, but that would only make Jane worry more. “She’s the same, as always,” he said. “But I realized something.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“I realized the Isle isn’t my home anymore,” he admitted, his eyes cast to the ceiling with faded glow-in-the-dark stars he had stuck there so many years ago now. “And…I’m okay with that.”

Jane was quiet for a long moment before she said, “You always have a home here.”

Carlos’s mouth pulled into a wide smile because no one was there to see it or judge him for it or say anything either way about it. “I think I needed to hear that.”

Then they spoke of less stressing things, of college courses and grants and scholarships, and Carlos felt lighter than he had in days.

*

The day Carlos was set to leave, his mother made breakfast. It didn’t smell good – the bacon was burnt, and the scrambled eggs were runny – but she stood over it with a smile of smudged lipstick. “Well?” she said, holding up a spatula as she stood in an apron that looked ridiculous on her, and he could tell she wanted to be congratulated for one of the only times she had acted like a regular mother.

The smile he wore was definitely more for her than himself. “Thanks, Mom. It looks…great.”

Cruella beamed in a way that reminded Carlos that there had been moments, few though they may have been, when she hadn’t been exactly “cruel” as her name always suggested…

The breakfast was far from perfect, but for once he felt a hint of love from the mother who had always seemed to make sure that she didn’t show such regard for her only son.

*

On the other side of the bridge between the Isle and Auradon, Jane was waiting for him.

“You didn’t have to meet me,” Carlos said, feeling a blush rise in his face as she drew him into a hug.

Jane brushed a kiss against his cheek. “I’m the welcoming committee for everyone else,” she said, “so why wouldn’t I be one for my boyfriend too?”

The words _my boyfriend_ still had the power to catch Carlos off-guard, even though they had been dating for a while – even by Auradon standards. Once they were through with college, it would only be a matter of time before people expected engagement rings and proposals and planning for happily-ever-after…

But it was Jane. _His_ Jane. He would gladly see through the good and the bad for her. Whatever family had once meant to him – his mother and his crew with Mal, Evie, and Jay – Jane would be a part of that someday family he would make for himself.

It would mean a new beginning, a chance to change the colors on the slate.

Jane backed away to look at him, her eyes tensing as if she were concerned about something.

“You’re getting me a little worried, Carlos,” she said, her fingertips tracing his cheek. “Why the silent treatment?”

Carlos caught her hand in his and softly ran a kiss across the back of her hand. “Just thinking.”

Jane smiled, and he could imagine how her heart might have fluttered right then. “Care to clue me in?”

“Just the future,” he said. “ _Our_ future.”

“Oh.” Carlos could see that Jane didn’t know how to respond to _that_. “Can you give me a forecast?”

Carlos shook his head. “I think that’s to be determined – but clear skies for now.”

Jane’s smile came back with full force. “Good,” she said. Then she gently took his hand in hers. “Welcome home, Carlos.”

And this time his answering smile was true, no clouds in sight. “It’s good to be back.”


End file.
